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I am building a robot testbed at my community college and I inherited an iRobot ATRV-JR platform, but no documentation or other information. Does anyone here have experience or know who I can contact.
Thanks, Jonathan West
These robots have a proprietary board inside called an rFlex bus that communicates with the sensors and motors. I've been trying to communicate with the rFlex board on my ATRV-Jr for a while now with no luck so far.
I found that the Washington University robotics group has written some ROS software that communicates with rFlex based robots, but it didn't seem to work for me. But I haven't had time to troubleshoot deeply yet. It's not my main project.
http://wu-ros-pkg.sourceforge.net
Here is a manual for the iRobot/RWI software that runs on the onboard PC. It's terribly old not supported anymore, so I did not find it useful.
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~shapiro/C...
I have been able to drive mine around the lab using an old wired joystick and walking behind it. I can talk you through that if you'd like to do that. Let me know if you're interested.
Hi there,
Did you manage to have any luck? Either with a communicating with the rFlex board or installing your own interfaces after striping it down.
I am facing a similar dilemma with my ATRV, so I would appreciate any feedback.
Thanks,
Miguel
I am somewhat jealous of you... That thing has SONARS ! (Well, the rescue version anyway)
http://rescue.isr.ist.utl.pt/atrvjr.php
Found something else here:
http://www.ing.unibs.it/~arl/projects...
It has a Pentium 3 inside. If the communication with the sensors/controllers is not proprietary, you could try replacing the mainboard with something more powerful.
Thanks for the information. Yes, it has the sonar array which I would like to use, but all of the interface is apparently proprietary and quite outdated. My goal is to get a good educational platform up and running so spending a lot of time on old, proprietary interfaces may not be in my best interest.
I was hoping that the interface boards would just be a serial communication protocol that I could implement, but otherwise I may end up stripping it down to the motors and hardware and then replacing the electronics with a laptop and some more modern interfaces.
I will look into the links provided and see if I can make anything work before I give up on the existing system.
Thanks again
J West
Asked: 2014-06-24 14:28:57 -0500
Seen: 954 times
Last updated: Jun 25 '14
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